Obama probably the only choice.

The Presidential Election in America looks to close to call  with Obama  and Romney  running neck and neck and even the swing states look they could go either way .

I suspect that a huge majority of people in Wales will be hoping for an Obama victory despite the disappointment  that  his four  year tenure has failed to match the oratory and message of hope that we saw in the run up to the election

Of course Obama problem has been  that he has spent the last four years effectively running for re-election since his inauguration and with the need to keep both houses of Congress on side even when the democrats were in a majority in them, meant that the role of the most powerful man in the world (but China's leader must be a contender) is much more limited than we often give credit.


As this morning Observer says

The messages of hope and change ran aground in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, exacerbated both by the parlous state of the economy he inherited from his predecessor and by the two huge costly wars he was obliged to fight.f he has not transformed America in the way that many might have hoped, he has at least mitigated some of the pain while moving to bring to an end one of the US's greatest iniquities, its shocking inequality in affordable healthcare provision. Through the car manufacturers' bailout, his insistence on stress testing of banks and through carefully targeted stimuli, he ensured that the US now appears to be emerging from financial crisis with modest growth and a rise in employment figures even as those European governments that pursued a strategy of austerity are at very best bumping along the bottom. Obama steered a course between the left of his own party, who were advocating for populist but risky measures, and Republican obstructionism.

Observer November 4th  2012

Faced with the re-election of Obama  and the trikel down economics of Romney that would enact large tax cuts,effectively  reducing revenue, while increasing defence spending sharply, and claiming that he  he could eat into the huge American deficit by spending cuts alone. I can only hope for a Obama victory though I don't think I will as full of enthusiasms as as I was 4 years ago.

On foreign policy too, Romney represents a return to the disastrous years of George W Bush – threatening confrontation with China by saying he would list it as a currency manipulator whilst sabre rattling with Iran.

Sadly the nature of American politics means the electorate in reality have only a choice of two candidates and don't really have the option of voting for a candidate who may even come close to meeting  their objectives.

If Obama wins on Tuesday we can only hope that we will see  the man we had so much promise on the start of his first term and maybe he Will start earning The 2009 Nobel peace prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" as the committee claimed).

 The award, given in the first year of Obama's presidency, rightly received criticism that it was undeserved, premature and politically motivated. 

Whatever happens, it is for the peoples of America ,to decide but the rest of the world may well regret their choice if its Romney.

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